Nearly every student teacher who starts our program identifies classroom management, discipline as the number one concern and goal. They understand before they ever step foot in a classroom that one adult in a room with many children requires some powerful presence and skill to keep everyone safe and on track.
The default for most of us is reward/punishment. But it ultimately doesn’t work for non-compliant kids. I have watched the interaction go so far south with children who feel they no longer have anything to lose. They don’t care if the situation escalates, if the consequences keep getting more dire. In the long run, all reward/punishment prepares kids for is environments where they are forced to behave. It doesn’t seem to bring internal self monitoring or control.
Teachers can get trapped in ever escalating consequences for kids.
Ross Greene provides another way that is showing promise with many different children in different settings. In a way it comes down to to this: Believe children when they say they have problems. Find out what they are. Help them problem solve.
Yes, never so simple but he provides research and examples that are worth considering if we are ever to find our way to help kids find their way to get along and succeed in our system.
Here is a good article describing the approach with examples to show what can happen for kids and the adults who work with them. What if Everything You Knew About Discipline Was Wrong?